


Blow out the Candles

by orphan_account



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Blindness, Day Six, F/M, Ishvalan War, Royai Week 2015, So much angst, but also some fluff?, god help me, my apologies for the cheese, seriously it's the cheesiest thing I've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 08:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4130635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He lies back and she curls into him, filling the spaces his body leaves the way she fills the emptiness his soul now must carry. Which makes him sound like a hopeless romantic, Roy knows, and perhaps when morning comes he’ll regret allowing himself this hope, but their union is always marked by desperation and when it comes he can’t deny himself the small flicker of light.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blow out the Candles

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song [ "Love is Blindness" ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLNFw9EYXOw) by U2.

It’s the middle of the night when she comes to him. As a state alchemist Roy Mustang is granted the luxury of his own tent, small though it might be, and with no moon or stars to speak of Hawkeye is just another shadow in the dark, quietly slipping under the canvas to sit rigidly at his feet. 

“Hawkeye, that you?”

“My apologies, Major. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

He shifts to a seated position. “Whoever sleeps in this place, right?”

“Only in nightmares.” Riza slides a little closer. “Tonight I dreamed you were dead again. I had to make sure you were still here. Sometimes I don’t even know when I’m awake and when I’m not anymore.”

“Come here.”

She does, and he puts his arm around her, drawing her closer. It isn’t the first time one of them has held the other on such a night, but it’s only ever been just this—comfort in human touch from the neverending hell of their surroundings. A brief reprieve from a bespoke isolation. At times like these they don’t even care if they get kicked out of the military for it. 

“This war is blindness.” She leans her head on his shoulder. “We come marching in our robes of white like we’re supposed to be angels, when through it all what we really are is killers. I have too much blood on my hands for even the desert to soak up.”

Roy wishes he could see her right now, trace the lines of worry on her face as if in them he could find the reason for all this carnage. He moves so he’s sitting across from her, slipping both hands around her waist, and feels her pulse quicken. Or maybe that’s his own.

“Every day when I wake up I think, ‘I’m still alive.’ And then I think, ‘Today is the day I will keep my promise to Riza Hawkeye, because even the evil of this war cannot suppress her spirit, nor the smoke disguise her intentions.’”

She presses her forehead against his and he can tell that she’s smiling a little. 

“I’ve lost the right to such praises, Roy Mustang.”

“You are the only thing that can be right, Riza Hawkeye.”

She lets out a sound that is either a laugh or a sob, or maybe both. 

“Perhaps blindness can be a good thing after all,” she says, “I don’t think I’d be able to face such allegations in daylight.” 

Her words are so close he can feel them brushing against his lips. They flirt with him bitterly, knowing the vow they hint at can never be. 

“Then for tonight, let’s be blind.” 

He lies back and she curls into him, filling the spaces his body leaves the way she fills the emptiness his soul now must carry. Which makes him sound like a hopeless romantic, Roy knows, and perhaps when morning comes he’ll regret allowing himself this hope, but their union is always marked by desperation and when it comes he can’t deny himself the small flicker of light. 

“I can hear you thinking,” Riza remarks. 

He strokes her hair absently. “You would laugh at me.”

“I don’t know if I even have that capability now.”

“Out here, it’s impossible to see the future I’ve always dreamed of. But then I look at you and I remind myself of why I need to keep trying to make a better world. I don’t know if it can ever happen, but I need to believe it will.”

She buries her head in his chest. “How is it you’re still as idealistic as when I first met you?”

“Your mouth is tickling me.” 

“What, like this?” she gently kisses his collarbone. 

He closes his eyes. The ache of wanting her—of wanting a life with her beyond this war, where even the scars of it can’t touch them—has grown so strong he can feel it in his throat, burning away even the acrid taste of smoke he can never be rid of. He feels like the teenager he was when he first met her, unsure and unaware and head full of ridiculous notions. 

“Riza—” he begins.

“Don’t.” She kisses him again, this time on his jaw. “Don’t speak. Wrap me in this darkness and pull me to you and hide me from myself. Let me unsee the awful deeds I’ve done.” 

Riza has never been one for flowery metaphor, he knows this about her. But they are dizzy with the years of hesitance behind them and the uncertainty of any future years to come. In this moment it seems they will never leave these battlefields, and they will remain soldiers the rest of their lives. The rest of the world will keep moving in an anguished fervor, trying always to reclaim what it has lost, but they will lie here with the candles blown out, blind to the spinning of all but their churning hearts.


End file.
